Information Optimization in Coupled Audio-Visual Cortical Maps

Barn owls hunt in the dark by using cues from both sight and sound to locate their prey. This task is facilitated by topographic maps of the external space formed by neurons (e.g., in the optic tectum) that respond to visual or aural signals from a specific direction. Plasticity of these maps has been studied in owls forced to wear prismatic spectacles that shift their visual field. Adaptive behavior in young owls is accompanied by a compensating shift in the response of (mapped) neurons to auditory signals. We model the receptive fields of such neurons by linear filters that sample correlated audio-visual signals, and search for filters that maximize the gathered information, while subject to the costs of rewiring neurons. Assuming a higher fidelity of visual information, we find that the corresponding receptive fields are robust and unchanged by artificial shifts. The shape of the aural receptive field, however, is controlled by correlations between sight and sound. In response to prismatic glasses, the aural receptive fields shift in the compensating direction, although their shape is modified due to the costs of rewiring.Comment: 7 pages, 1 figur

Zen and the art of film narrative: Towards a transcendental realism in film

Nations and peoples are largely the stories they feed themselves. If they tell themselves stories that are lies, they will suffer the consequences of those lies. If they tell themselves stories that face their own truths, they will free their histories for future flowerings. (Okri 1995: 21) What defines the classic narrative is also at the root of its limitations; an epistemology that ties it to a material and psychological paradigm governed by largely explicable laws of cause and effect. Such notions as ‘character motivation’, ‘narrative aims’, ‘obstacles’, ‘climax’ and so on have evolved to become as overwhelmingly dominant in cinema as the dogma of reason which subsequently the industrial age solidified. It is from this that the moving-image medium emerged: empirical evidence of motivations, mechanistic notions of causes and effects and scientifically based – including the pseudosciences of psychology and sociology – that provide justifications for events and actions – all serve to reinforce the dominance of the classic narrative’s role in the storytelling of the developed world. In this article, I shall call for a different perspective on cinematic narrative form; not with a view to discussing what film generally is, but to make some general suggestions of what it could be, particularly from the perspective of a film-maker trying to transcend the limitations of the classic narrative. The motive is to try and understand how, in practice, one may evolve narrative forms in such a way as to deal with experiences not sufficiently touched by the classic form, as it is currently generally practised in cinema. I shall, in particular, look at the relationship between emotions and feelings and their relationship to narrative structure and bring into this examination some notions and ideas from Zen Buddhism to re-evaluate that relationship. The issues I hope to raise are about paradigms and I shall therefore deliberately base my discussion on general assertions and eclectic contextualization

Press Dewatering of Sludge with Applications of an Electric Field

In the paper industry today, there is a rising concern over the question of what to do with the paper mill sludge. Although in the past most of the sludge was sent to a landfill, this disposal method is becoming less and less acceptable due to increasing environmental concerns, decreasing landfill space and increasing costs. Since sludge contains a large fraction of water, one of the alternatives is to increase the dewaterability of the sludge through the use of electrokinetic forces. Increased dewatering of the sludge would allow for more economical alternatives to sludge disposal, such as incineration, as well as decrease the sludge handling, transportation, and disposal costs by reducing both volume and weight. The main objective of this thesis was to determine if the application of an electric current through a sludge press would increase the amount of dewatering in the sludge. A simulated press that allowed for the sludge to be pressed in-between two charged screens and water to be collected from both the top and bottom of the press was designed and constructed. During experimentation, drainage amounts and final sludge consistency was collected under varying voltage applications and compared to a control run with no voltage. From the results, it could be concluded that the application of an electric field did indeed help increase the dewaterability of the sludge. The results also show that ion migration does take place in the sludge with positively charged particles carrying water molecules towards the negatively charged screen. Further studies in applying this concept at higher pressing consistencies as well as other applications is recommended

Cinema of poverty: Independence and simplicity in an age of abundance and complexity

Over the past 25 years of writing, producing and directing, my aspirations as a creative artist in film have shifted from a paradigm in which the scale and scope of financial and human resources shaped not only the creative intentions of a project, but the very definition of what made something ‘cinematic’, to a new paradigm in which poverty - both in terms of resources and, more philosophically, in terms of artistic expression - has become one of the defining features of my artistic aspiration and my understanding of a new cinema. This development has interacted with parallel developments in technologies of production, distribution and exhibition, of a kind and scale I never envisaged when first embarking on a career in film, and has, for me, led to a kind of creative liberation which I am only now beginning to fully understand. Traditionally, human and financial resources have been considered essential for the production of quality, creative narrative films. In this article, I shall reflect on my own practice to explore how poverty can enhance the creative engagement with the medium and lead to the development of new and innovative approaches to, amongst other things, narrative imagery and, in so doing, explore how poverty can introduce new and original approaches to cinematic story-telling

A Summary Report Prepared for the Office of the Governor, Boards and Commissions

This research project was undertaken by the author in partial fulfillment of a Master of Judicial Studies degree awarded December 2012 by the University of Nevada Reno and the National Judicial College. Although the project was funded by the author, the preparation of this report was funded by the University of Alaska Anchorage Justice Center. The author gratefully acknowledges the assistance of the Justice Center staff and faculty, especially André Rosay, Ph.D., Justice Center Director, Sharon Chamard, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Justice, and Barbara Armstrong, M.A., Research Associate. Points of view in this publication are those of the author and do not represent the official position or policies of the Justice Center, the University of Alaska Anchorage, the University of Nevada Reno, the National Judicial College, or the State of Alaska, Office of the Governor, Boards and Commissions and its staff.This report presents results of a survey of lay adjudicators in mixed-administrative tribunals in Alaska. Mixed administrative tribunals are appointed boards or commissions in which lay members decide legal issues with the involvement of a professional administrative law judge. This involvement varies in degree and methods, depending on the tribunal’s rules and statutes. The report describes reported participation, role perception, attitudes toward law, recruitment, and satisfaction with experience.List of Tables / The Purpose of this Research / The Participants / Respondents' Understanding of Member Duties / Participation in Decision-Making / Respondent Attitudes toward Law / Recruitment / Member Satisfaction / Maintaining the Strengths of Alaska's Mixed Tribunal

Sparsity prior for electrical impedance tomography with partial data

This paper focuses on prior information for improved sparsity reconstruction in electrical impedance tomography with partial data, i.e. data measured only on subsets of the boundary. Sparsity is enforced using an $\ell_1$ norm of the basis coefficients as the penalty term in a Tikhonov functional, and prior information is incorporated by applying a spatially distributed regularization parameter. The resulting optimization problem allows great flexibility with respect to the choice of measurement boundaries and incorporation of prior knowledge. The problem is solved using a generalized conditional gradient method applying soft thresholding. Numerical examples show that the addition of prior information in the proposed algorithm gives vastly improved reconstructions even for the partial data problem. The method is in addition compared to a total variation approach.Comment: 17 pages, 12 figure

The emergence of property rights enforcement in early trade : A behavioral model without reputational effects

Original article can be found at: http://www.sciencedirect.com/ Copyright ElsevierThe present article focuses on the conditions that allow governments to increase property rights protection because they expect enough income from such action. We develop a behavioral explanation, according to which the answer lies in the growth in the importance, size and wealth of merchant guilds in the medieval era in Western Europe as well as a somewhat surprising effect of volatile price structures. We add to prior research by showing that even uncoordinated embargo pressures among multiple guilds could get medieval rulers to offer high levels of property rights protection. © 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.Peer reviewe